MDDM: ch. 67 "Garden Pests"

[jbor]

Yes, Dixon certainly smoked dope at the Cape with the Native Africans and
East Indians, and that's where he learnt the term "*Dagga*".

I think the tenant farmers and "Head Gardener" are European-descendant
settlers (from the language they use: "ye ... yese .... " etc 656-7). And
keep in mind that it's Hugh Crawfford who's translating - on and off, at
least - for the "Indians!" (648.20, 654.9), which creates a different or
additional mediation of what they are given to think or say in the text,
though I've taken it for granted that Crawfford's pov and attitudes are
pretty well-aligned with those of the Native Americans (to "their"
satisfaction, at least).

I think one thing the magnification of scale achieves is to foreground the
analogy between agriculture and mining, in the context of the "living
planet" (657).

I agree that Franklin is held up as a paradigm case, or as a metonym for the
Enlightenment intellect in fact, but only in order to announce his and its
shortcomings: that "Human Art" is not equal to the task of producing such
monstrous marvels and, indeed, perhaps, that a rationalist "philosopher"
like Franklin would be unable to accommodate or entertain the possibility of
the existence of such giant-sized and possibly sentient veggies within his
or her schema/s of the universe (either, or just as, the traditional
Christian worldview, equated here with Mason, and to a lesser extent Dixon
and Crawfford, cannot come to grips with the spectacle/experience).

best

on 6/8/02 1:48 PM, Bandwraith at aol.com at Bandwraith at aol.com wrote:

> "Dagga" reminds me of the cape, as well. If these tenant farmers
> are not natives, than who are they? Interesting that the incremental
> nature of the increase in size of the veggies is used by Dixon to
> cast doubt on the existence of the "Faith-challenging Specimens"
> further west, which bring into question "the very Creation..."
> Seems quite biblical to me, but it all may be part of a pipe dream.
> 
> Franklin is held up as a paradigm of the philosophical arts, but
> even he would be unable to create such a yield. So the giant
> Veggies, it would seem, are unique. Their existence challenges
> both the biblical story of creation and the garden of eden,
> as well as, the newly discovered powers of the enlightenment
> represented by Franklin. Neither god nor man created this
> garden, a "place of Magick." This could be Wicks offering a
> wink to the adults and some fun for the twins, or it could be
> some other narrator, does it matter?
> 
> 
> In a message dated 8/5/02 5:35:17 PM, jbor at bigpond.com writes:
> 
> << The narrator's elaboration of Dixon's comment that "*Dagga* hath many
> mysteries" implies that there eventually is a bit of a pot ("peace-pipe"?)
> session between the "Indians!" and the two surveyors, and which is what ties
> it back to the scene at Mount Vernon. The narrator sez: "One [mystery]
> being, that talking about things, while not exactly causing them to happen,
> does cause something,-- which is almost the same, though not quite. Unless
> it is possible to smoke a Potatoe." (655.26-29) This is yet another example
> where the narrator is fairly obviously not Wicks, imo.
>>> 
>